Flying time

When anyone mentions ‘how time flies’ to me, I’m always reminded of one of those terrible so-called ‘brain teasers’ where you have to ‘solve’ an unpunctuated sentence. These days, it’d probably be an annoying game advert with a wrinkly Einstein cartoon and flashing graphics that interrupts whatever game you’re playing every 30 seconds. And it’ll probably have a clickbait title like “Only people with an IQ of 160 can solve this!”. What they don’t tell you is that 160 is actually the combined IQ of everyone who fell for the clickbait. Apologies to all you clickbaitees out there. Well, sorry not sorry as I believe is the catchphrase now?

Anyway. The sentence.

Time flies you cannot

But there’s another one that is very open to interpretation. I think it’s something like “woman without her man is nothing” How would you punctuate either of these – let me know in the comments!

So… yes… time. It’s that time of year again. I’ll be going quiet after this until September. Not because I’m disappearing off to cooler climes (I live there already!), but because I have to keep up with the garden which, although being weird, is still producing stuff. Mostly weeds at the moment.

But what I really mean is the concept of the passing of time in general. I’m regularly horrified by the difference between then and now. 40 years ago was actually the 1980s, not the 1960s as I’m usually convinced. Is it just me?

How things change- whether you want them to or not. I can’t handle change, not just because of the weird way my little vampire brain is wired, but also when you get to be as old as me, you’ve seen enough change and you’d really like it to stop now, please.

Summer holidays are coming up for schools and I’m glad that’s one big change that happened. What was my favourite thing about being in school?

August.

Does anyone actually like school? I hated it and I’m sure a lot of humans can probably relate. So many disasters that regularly to entertain my brain at 3 in the morning.

Brain: Planning on going to sleep, are we?

Me: Yes.

Brain: Great! I’ve got a full list of things here to think about, including that time when you were 10 and accidentally farted in front of that policeman during your cycling proficiency test.

I know I’ve mentioned the soup incident in Domestic Science before… refresh your memory here. The lesson was a disaster but the end result was fairly tasty.

There was the sewing incident in Year 2 (when I was 12) where, like most of the staff, the teacher told to give up the subject. I was always given the oldest, creakiest hand-operated machine while the class stars got to use the all-singing, all-dancing, all-overlocking machines by some company with an unpronounceable name. It was similar to the situation in Domestic Science (were we therefore being trained up to be domestic scientists?).

But the opposite is also true – something you think is old isn’t actually old after all. Funnily enough, it also involves a sewing machine – and me apologising to that old machine I muttered furiously at all those decades ago. If you want to know the recipe for the perfect apology, read the previous post here.

A side issue – getting bobbins for my ’old’ sewing machine

This happened a few years ago. Before we changed countries. And no, my machine wasn’t like the one in the picture – it actually dated from the mid 80s. I’d made a point of visiting a particular shop that I knew seemed to stock everything and where the staff really knew what they were talking about. And when I say I made a point, I really mean ‘special journey’.

Does anyone else do this?

Travel miles for something specific?

(I often used to go to London specifically to buy brownies from a bakery near the station. They cost a fortune but were delicious! Someone I knew used to bring them to meet ups and was very miffed to discover that I’d worked out where they’d got them from…)

So, I went in and asked for bobbins for ‘my old Singer’ and the gentleman returned from the magical Room In The Back with something that must have come from a machine that Mrs Noah must have used on the Ark.

Flustered, I said that my machine was from the 1980s, not the 1880s. The gentleman scoffed politely and said ‘That isn’t old. Not for a Singer.’

I stood corrected.

I recently went to get some more (still a half-hour journey by train and a 20-minute walk), from another wonderful shop and , surprise, surprise, even 40 years later, my machine still isn’t old.

Think about that next time you look in the mirror and panic. You’re not old. You’re a classic.

But anyway… Time is indeed flying – it is that time of year and here I disappear. I’ll see you all in the autumn!

For anyone wanting to read all my rants in one place – including all-new exclusive stuff, then click below!

Volume 1 of my diary – why not start at the very beginning?

Volume 2 – more rants, musings and fairly useful advice

Volume 3 – things are afoot! The thot plickens…

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